S&P 500 · January 2, 2001

The year opened down

-2.80%

single-day change vs previous close

Part of a longer stretch

The dot-com bust hits the S&P 500

early in it · 2000-03-24 → 2002-10-09, -49.15% over the whole period

What happened that day?

January 2, 2001 — the S&P 500 fell 2.80% to 1,283.27. No single cause for the day could be pinned down
The manufacturing survey that morning was weak, read as proof the economy had already cooled
It was the second straight decline and the lowest close since December 21
The next day the Fed cut without waiting for a scheduled meeting. On January 3 the index rose by more than it had just lost
The bounce did not hold. Two sessions later it fell hard again
From September 5, 2000 to April 4, 2001 the episode ran -26.80%
Cuts kept coming all year. The index still fell into the autumn

Sources

S&P 500

Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is put together from the public record; where a specific source was consulted it is listed above.